Page:Zelda Kahan - Karl Marx His Life And Teaching (1918).pdf/2



was born on May 5th, 1818, at Treves. His father was a prominent Jewish lawyer and notary public at the County Court. He was a man of great talent, highly educated, and thoroughly imbued with the liberal progressive ideas of 18th century France. In 1824 a Prussian edict was issued commanding all Jews to be baptised on pain of forfeiting all official position. Although a freethinker, a disciple of Voltaire, the old Marx submitted, rather than give up his profession and thus bring ruin to his family. Karl Marx's mother was a Dutch Jewess of Hungarian descent, whose ancestors were Rabbis.

Karl soon showed great promise intellectually, and, fortunately, his parents were able to give him every encouragement and opportunity for cultural development.

His father read Racine and Voltaire to him, and early made him familiar with the French classics, whilst at the home of Ludwig von Westphalen, his future wife's father, he learnt to love Homer and Shakespeare. Karl Marx's deep sympathy with the working class and his revolutionary ardour were based on pure reasoning, insight and study; it was not in any way due, in the first instance, to mere sentiment, to class position, or personal suffering. Nevertheless, he was anything but the mere cold philosopher, the impersonal scientist, the detached dissector of history. As all his personal friends and his whole life testify, he was not, like Darwin, his contemporary, a mere specialist, but besides being a genius, he was an all-round human being with all the loves, desires, passions and weaknesses of the human being. It is interesting to note that his first literary efforts were poetry. His daughter Eleanor relates that "he was always loved and feared by his